


A Star, Or A Tomb

by LorettaFryingPan



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Gen, Introspection, Magical Artifacts, Visions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-10
Updated: 2019-07-10
Packaged: 2020-06-24 22:09:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,487
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19732750
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LorettaFryingPan/pseuds/LorettaFryingPan
Summary: In a dark cavern, Caleb looks at, and into, the Beacon.





	A Star, Or A Tomb

**Author's Note:**

> If you honesty thought I wasn't going to make the correlation between the Transistor and the Luxon Beacon...you don't know me very well. Two incredibly powerful glowing artifacts with the ability to control life? I had to. Also, Matt asking Liam how deeply Caleb was looking at the Beacon, back in Zadash, stuck in my brain as being important.  
> The quote that inspired this piece is from a bit of unused audio found in the game files.
> 
> Also, hi. I'm back, I guess? In peak form with the purest self-indulgence for your perusal.

It was a terrible idea, but this had been a week packed to the rafters with terrible ideas, so what was one more? If this whole sequence of events was just the slow digging of his grave, at least he was the one holding the shovel now. They were going into the lions’ den, no, directly into the lion’s _jaws_ , and this might be his last opportunity to look upon the beacon.

Sitting on the stone ground under his dome, under the tunnel roof, under tons of earth, under the crushing weight of two empires, Caleb chose to act. He reached over to Jester’s haversack and silently snaked his hand inside. He was the only one awake, sitting watch in case any more of those Ropers or something worse happened by, although Frumpkin was loafing atop the dome as an extra pair of eyes, so it wasn’t as though he was truly alone. Jester had taken the haversack off and fell asleep with it by her back, so it was no matter to pull the leaden box out and set it on his lap. He shrugged his coat off and draped it over everything to dull the glow of the beacon when he cracked the lid. The light, when he finally opened the cold metal box, was little more than a faint seep under the fabric of his coat, and not even Caduceus stirred. Taking a steadying breath, he spread his fingers out over the dodecahedron.

Without the pulsing light to draw his focus, it was easier to pick out other details that he had missed before. It felt cool and smooth like cut quartz under his fingers, the sharp corners dulled by time. There were minute scratches along the surface, and the occasional tiny chip on the edges. An object well cared for, certainly, but the centuries left their marks. The handles, smoothly-wrought metal, had no give at all where they met the stone, affixed either by magic or some ancient lapidary skills likely lost to time. As he lay his palm fully on one of the faces there came a resonance from within it, from a space Caleb could only assume to be its core, if magical stone could have such a thing; an odd vibration that fell somewhere between the rushing pulse of blood and the comforting thrum of Frumpkin’s purr.

His eyes drifted closed after a moment, and he let his breathing sync up with the gentle ebb and flow of that unearthly hum.

It was hard to tell how much time passed like that, breathing and letting the sensation travel through him. And while normally that would have frightened him, would call him back to those dark years in the asylum, there was instead a strange peace that settled in his mind instead.

Drawing the coat up over his head like a shroud, he cracked the box open wider, and let the glow wash over him. Contained in the small space it was almost _too_ bright, although logically Caleb knew it wasn’t any brighter than one of his dancing lights. He looked at the beacon, cataloguing each of the little nicks and scratches he had felt beneath his hand. The more he examined it, the less it looked like a solid object and the more it looked like a container. There was something there, something he had seen in the basement of the Leaky Tap but had been too afraid to examine. Not this time. He pulled the beacon out and set it on his lap. Then, taking a slow breath, he shifted from looking at it, to looking _into_ it. And in that moment everything, _everything_ , ceased to matter.

Caleb was aware of his body only in the most prosaic sense. It was an object in space on the prime material plane. The tunnel, the monsters, the looming specter of Xhorhas before them and the hounds of the Empire behind, all diminished into tiny trivialities. There was only the beacon, and the vast star field around him. Possibilities, causalities, entire lifetimes all stretched out around him in an infinite web of constellations, tracing like the roots of a vast tree behind him, into infinite branches and leaves before. If he wanted, it would be nothing to find one of these paths and trace it, see all its secrets. He felt no urgency, no rush; there was time. Here, there was nothing but.

Peace, silence, and light.

Caleb let his eyes drift closed. He now understood, or at least he thought he understood, the nature of the object in his hands, but he could never put that understanding to words. It was immeasurably dense but no heavier than Nott, incomparably vast but tucked snugly in his lap. This was a thing of wonder, of beauty, of power beyond scope. 

He opened his eyes. He had to look deeper.

No longer was he in the cave, or the star field. He stood in a vast field of golden grain, and the bittersweet ache of memory pricked his heart. These were the Zemni Fields of his youth, not as they truly were but lacquered over with the nostalgia of childhood, lit with the light the world held when it was still wide and full of wonder. He held the beacon in one hand and began to walk, trailing his other hand through the stalks. Each one meant something, had been placed specifically with a purpose; he did not know what, but that would come in time.

Out of the corner of his eye he saw the shapes of other people walking in other directions. When he turned his head to look they vanished like mist, like they had never been there. The wheat was taller now, the tassels brushing up above his waist and the prickly grass clinging to his bare arms.

That was where his thoughts caught. He had been wearing his coat before, right? He had been clothed, at the very least. He could feel the dirt and weeds beneath his feet, and the wind against the skin of his back. But just as quickly as the concern came, it left. It did not matter, here, what he wore. Holding up his empty hand, he stared at the thin, pearlescent scars up his forearm, how the golden light caught them like chips of mica. They were so old, now, and dug so deep in the flesh they would never fade. He would need to begin again, to grow anew like the wheat.

Eventually he came to a stop. There was no forest yet on the horizon, no humble village that he knew by heart. Perhaps there would never be. Perhaps he was too late, or too early. Still, though, this was fine. This was where he was supposed to be. He carefully sat down in the field, holding the beacon in both hands. Shifting the stalks around him, Caleb lay back and stared up at the fathomless sky. He set the beacon on his chest, finding rest for it just below his sternum, and sinking his hands into the rich earth beside him. This, too, meant something.

The wheat, it seemed from this perspective, was even taller now. The sky was impossibly blue. He was one with both, and the beacon set upon his chest centered him. He had spent enough time here, he realized. It was impossible to tell how long he had been here, but it was time to go. He closed his eyes.

Awareness came back to him in pieces. The cold damp of the floor, the ache in his hunched shoulders, the muggy and stagnant air under his coat. He had bent over far enough in his trance that his forehead was pressed to the beacon, and the light left spots over his vision when he sat up. With some reluctance, he packed the beacon back in the box and slid it back into the haversack. He didn’t want to let go of it, now that he had seen inside. That tranquil understanding was starting to slip from his grasp, leaving only memories and the frustrating knowledge that it would take years, decades, to truly comprehend and retain what he had been given.

He called Frumpkin down from the top of the dome and gathered him in his arms, Frumpkin purring happily and nuzzling under his chin. He sat out the rest of his shift like that, looking out into the dark and trying to find the stars.

//\\\//\\\//\\\

“What you have there, in your hands; maybe it’s a star, or a tomb. The end of the world, the weight of the Country- lighter than one might expect, too. A priceless artifact, more significant than...I don’t know. More than the two of us put together, more than anything I can think of, really. And you’ve been dragging it like that, on the ground.”

-Royce Bracket (Sunkrish Bala), _Transistor_

**Author's Note:**

> If you haven't played Transistor, you absolutely have to. Play all of Supergiant's games, in fact.
> 
> Link to a post with the audio is [here](https://lorettafryingpan.tumblr.com/post/137776643007/thehappinessmachine-someone-managed-to-dig-out), if you want to listen to it. I would recommend that you do, if you're not familiar with Royce's particular cadence.
> 
> My description of the causal web is heavily cribbed from another source, brownie points if you know the reference.
> 
> Hope you enjoyed it! Let me know what you think. This was a bitch to tag, so I'll take any suggestions if you think I'm missing anything especially important. 
> 
> I'm on tumblr at lorettefryingpan/djinn-and-djuice, and on twitter if you know where to look. <3


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